In recent years in the Western world, the great proliferation of electronic equipment has lead to a like proliferation of various cables for interconnecting pieces of such equipment to perform various functions. Anyone who has ever set up a component high fidelity system in the home is aware of the unsightly rat's nest of cables which can, and does, grow like kudzu around such installations.
In the last ten years, revolutions in integrated circuit technology have led to the widespread proliferation of small computers, commonly referred to as personal computers, throughout homes and businesses in the industrialized world. Computing power and storage capacity is now available for a relatively small price, which, 15 years ago, could only be obtained at the facilities of large corporations or university computing centers. The rapid decline of the cost per unit of computer capability has led to increased sophistication of small computer systems found in the home and the office. This has led to a common practice of having one or more computer peripheral devices collected at the computing site. In particular, a modem is one of the most common computer peripherals found at such locations.
Many modems are connected to serial ports via standard DB-25 connector plugs whuch are designed to connect to 25-conductor cables. Even though the conductors are somewhat small, and often a cable is realized using less than 25 conductors, such cables tend to be somewhat bulky. In a typical modern, stand-alone intelligent modem, one DB-25 connector requiring a substantial cable is used. Additionally, such modems commonly have two telephone ports and a power line connection. One of the telephone ports connects directly to a telephone line tap and the other is provided as a convenience outlet for a telephone set which is connected to the phone line when the modem is not in use. Typically, the power line connector is a relatively small gauge low-power connection to the secondary of a wall mounted transformer, although direct connection to the AV power distribution lines is also used. These cables are various sizes and various lengths.
Because the DB-25 plug typically is somewhat large and thick, it is common to provide a form of strain relief at the point where the cable enters the plug. This prevents the cable conductors from pulling loose from the pins if the cable is bent about a small radius of curvature near the point where the cable enters the plug. This provides several centimeters of the cable structure between the end of the plug and the main body of the cable which is relatively stiff.
As computers have become more and more popular in the executive office and in the home, it has become more popular to install such devices in "computer furniture" and other aesthetically pleasing arrangements which befit the home or executive office environment. Many such arrangements include installation of devices in cabinetry having rear walls. In a typical prior art installation, the relatively stiff portion of the serial port cable will encounter the rear wall of such a piece of furniture and will resist further backward movement. Also, pushing the modem farther back tends to cause it to become skewed as the section of the cable between the point contacting the wall and the modem's data port becomes bent under torsion. Also, in various layouts, the user often desires to somewhat neatly arrange the cables behind the installation once the computer and peripheral devices are in place.
Those experienced in working with such equipment will be very familiar with the phenomenon that, as soon as a device is picked up and moved, the cables tend to rearrange themselves in a somewhat random order, often under the feet of the body of the device in a manner which causes the device to no longer fit flush upon the surface where it formerly rested. This leads to bothersome manipulation of the cables, often accomplished by blindly sticking one's hand over the equipment and reaching behind the arrangement, followed by shaking and manipulating the cables until they fall into a configuration which allows the arrangement of components to be repositioned more or less in the manner desired.
As computer furniture and other arrangements for providing attractive configurations for small computer installations have become more popular, there has been a growing need for predictability of the volume occupied by peripheral devices. Many users have examined the dimensional specifications of a computer peripheral, and reached decisions with respect to installation of a system at the home or office, only to encounter the unexpected reality of the rearward clearance requirements of real-world cable connectors. This reality requires location of the peripheral devices several inches foreward of where they might have been originally planned by those who are uninitiated in this practice. This can lead to the disappointing discovery that the doors on a cabinet containing such a computer system cannot be closed.
Additionally, smaller computer peripherals, such as modems, have tended to become more lightweight in recent years. This is due in large part to the miniaturization of electronic components and the common practice of keeping the typically heaviest single component, the power transformer, outside of the modem's equipment enclosure and located in a wall-mounted encapsulated container where the transformer plugs into the AC distribution line. When such devices are installed in more conventional arrangements where the back of the modem tends to be near the rear edge of an open backed piece of furniture, or a computer or monitor upon which the modem is placed, the following can occur. Under these conditions, the modem is relatively lightweight, and a relatively heavy collection of cables may hang for a considerable distance from the back of the modem toward the floor. This can lead to a situation in which the effective weight of the hanging portion of the cable is enough to tend to rotate the modem about an axis defined by the rear feet of the enclosure, thus tending to raise the front end of the modem. When this occurs, some additional support must be given to the cabling in order to keep the front end of the modem from occasionally hopping up in the air, or from having the modem dragged off its normal resting place. The latter is particularly problematic if a modem is rested atop one of several popular CRT monitors which tend to have top surfaces of their cabinets which slope slightly downward as one proceeds from the screen area in the front toward the rear of the monitor.
Even if the modem is sufficiently heavy so that there is no problem with cable weight tending to lift it or pull it off the back of a flat, open-backed, piece of furniture, there is still the problem of the clearance required between such a piece of furniture and the wall. Users of prior art installations are generally required either to move the modem or other peripheral device forward on such a piece of furniture, leaving the cable connector and a length of cable exposed to view, or to move the entire piece of furniture out from the wall to give sufficient rearward clearance to the modem's connector and cable. Many people believe it is aesthetically more attractive to be able to have a rear end of the enclosure for a computer peripheral device substantially aligned with the rear edge of the planar surface of an open-backed piece of furniture such as a return or a credenza. In order to be able to keep such a piece of furniture as close as possible to the nearest wall, it is necessary to have some arrangement which will allow the peripheral's connector cables to make a sharp bend over the rear edge of such a piece of furniture and immediately start their downward descent.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for a practical and inexpensive arrangement for cable management in computer peripheral devices, and in particular, modems. In order to overcome some of the inconveniences and problems encountered in the prior art, the cable management system should have the following features. First, it should be easy to contend with and not require that the cable, which the user might wish to change at a later date, be permanently connected. Second, it is highly desirable that the cable management system be able to direct all the cables leading to the peripheral device so that the cables enter or exit the footing of the modem at one of a selected plurality of predetermined angular orientations. Since the footing for peripheral devices is typically rectangular, it is highly desirable that the angular orientations include at least three spaced apart by 90 degrees and corresponding to rearward exit and entry of the cables, and entry or exit from either side of the device.
Additionally, the cable management system should allow the other surfaces of the device, which do not correspond to planes cut by the cables, to be abutted directly against a surface such as the rear or side walls of an equipment cabinet. It is also highly desirable that the cable management system allow an arrangement whereby the rear edge of the equipment enclosure containing the peripheral device be substantially co-planar with, or only extend slightly beyond, the rear of a piece of furniture upon which the peripheral is sitting, and still allow the cables to hang directly downward over the rear edge of such furniture. It is desirable that this be accomplished in a manner which does not cause the cables to apply a significant moment to the peripheral device about an axis defined by its rear legs, thus tending to lift the front end of the peripheral in response to the weight of the hanging cables.
Additionally, such a cable management system should preclude random and accidental rearrangement of the cables in a manner which interferes with replacement of the peripheral device in its desired location if the device is ever moved for any reason.